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The Lap
Between Paragon and the Firepeaks lies a smiling country of low, rolling hills and prosperous farms. Amid this bucolic splendor rises a statue the size of a mountain, hewn in the shape of a monk seated in meditation. So vast is this statue that its legs support an entire city. The people of the region name the city after its location: the Lap. The Realm has controlled the Lap practically from the start of the Second Age. Most Laplanders don’t mind being a satrapy of the Realm; they like knowing if anyone attacks them, Imperial legionnaires and Dragon-Blooded heroes will protect them. No one imagines the Realm would abandon them. The Lap, they tell each other, is too important to the Realm. Any resentment tends to get directed at the Laplanders’ own ruling class. The Laplanders, however, cannot escape the Time of Tumult. The Lap has power—more than it wants and, indeed, more than it knows. The city has become the focus of ambitions beyond the understanding of the complacent Laplanders. HISTORY Construction of the mountain-statue Laplanders call the Penitent, or simply the Old Man, began during the height of the Old Realm. Naturally, it became a tourist attraction. Even in the Age of Splendor, a five-mile-high statue stood out as an amazing achievement. A monastery became the first settlement on the statue. Here, enlightened mortals practiced supernatural martial arts as a spiritual discipline to develop their understanding of Essence. The monastery became a minor tourist attraction in its own right, as well as a base camp for pilgrims and sportsmen who wanted to climb the Last Supplicant. With tourists came hotels, snack bars and other facilities of merely secular purpose. In time, a small town grew around the base of the statue. Through the Shogunate period, the province around the Penetant became a magnet for refugees fleeing the desert’s advance. In the first century after the Usurpation, someone noticed that the bowl formed by the statue’s legs was both fertile farmland and a very safe place to live. Settlement spread out from the old monastery, until a town appeared. Thus began the Lap. The city reached its current size in less than 200 years. The Lap suffered its first war in the Shogunate period. During a civil war between Southern daimyos, the Lap emerged as a strategic strongpoint—which meant the daimyos fought over it. The city suffered considerable damage, including the demolition of the old monastery. In rebuilding, significant remains of the old city were simply buried under a new layer of construction. The Great Contagion depopulated the Lap as thoroughly as the other Southern cities, but the Lap suffered little physical damage. The statue itself was not so lucky. A sworn brotherhood of Terrestrial Exalted fired powerful Essence weapons at the Last Supplicant’s head, trying to blast their way into the control room. They had the same plan as the nascent Scarlet Empress—to rouse a mighty weapon of the Anathema—but achieved nothing more than to cover half of the statue’s face with slag. The Lap suffered far worse damage after the Empress scourged the Fair Folk from Creation. The warlords dubbed the Seven Tigers met at the Lap to plan their conquest of Creation, and they stripped the city bare of people, weapons and anything that might prove useful in their military campaign. After she destroyed the Seven Tigers, however, the Empress helped the remaining Laplanders return home. As the Empress extended the Realm’s grip on the South, she realized the Lap’s full strategic importance. The Lap’s farmland could feed her legions, freeing them from the need to forage or depend on other local allies. To this end, she made a variety of choices to bind the Lap firmly to the Realm. Her first major choice was to invite other refugees to settle in the Lap. The city and its satellite villages had plenty of vacant lodgings. The Empress quickly recruited tens of thousands of people who were grateful to have a home. In return, the Empress demanded total obedience to her program of agricultural labor. The new Laplanders became serfs, albeit well-fed ones. As the satrapy system developed, the Empress realized that the Lap could become too valuable. After the second rebellion by an ambitious satrap, she gave the province three coequal satraps, who became known as the Golden Triumvirate. She also found that as the South became more stable and prosperous, the Laplanders no longer tolerated outright serfdom. As a sop to local pride, she converted the Laplanders’ serfdom to a period of indenture. Astute Laplanders realized that they had actually gained little, since many of them never lived long enough to see freedom. Nevertheless, Charm enhanced Dynastic oratory persuaded most Laplanders that the generous Empress had given them a great boon. For the last three centuries, the Lap has stayed firmly under Imperial control. The city-state suffered occasional peasant revolts, but always against hated native leaders—never against the Realm. The resident legion consistently crushed invaders, even those led by Fair Folk nobles, God-Blooded warlords or Lunar Anathema. Eventually, invaders stopped coming. As rumors of war spread through other lands, the Lap’s leaders and the Realm’s strategists both smugly say that the Lap has nothing to fear. Nothing ever happens in the Lap! MILITARY POWER The Lap’s greatest military strength is its location. An invader might easily overrun the rest of the province, but it won’t take the Lap itself—not when the soldiers would need to climb at least 700 feet to reach the city, with soldiers dumping rocks, boiling urine or other unpleasantness upon them. The Lap also stores 2-3 years of provisions, to wait out a siege. Throughout the South, “starving the Lap” harks back to a proverb about ludicrously futile actions. The Lap houses the 12th Imperial Legion and has its own local legion of soldiers called sepoys. Adding to the martial mix, the city’s land-holding magnates support small groups of personal troops—thugs, really. These straw bosses and bullies are tough enough to push around tired farmhands, but they’re worthless for a real fight. Even poorly trained sepoys scorn them. THE 12TH LEGION The Realm values the Lap enough to give the little province its own legion. Other Imperial legions sometimes call the 12th Legion the “Grain Guards,” for they do very little but train, watch crops grow, and occasionally help local soldiers chase bandits off the farmlands. Still, the 12th is a full-strength legion of 5,000 soldiers, and their officers keep the soldiers prepared for battle should the city ever face attack. CATHAK LETAL The commanding general of the 12th Legion is a handsome, charming man with a great grasp of military history. He knows much of The Thousand Correct Actions of the Upright Soldier by heart. He insists that his troops drill to stay in peak fighting condition. Unfortunately, Cathak Letal possesses a weird anti-genius for field command and politics. Letal frequently misunderstands others’ motives and capabilities. His military debacles include commanding an entire dragon to its accidental death and losing an entire caravan to a group of bandits whom his soldiers outnumbered five to one. The head of his House, Cathak Cainan, does not throw away family members or the blood of the Dragons. He thought the Lap was the safest place for his incompetent relative. Just in case, however, Cainan also sent the 12th a group of highly skilled winglords and dragonlords to make sure the troops have strong and skilled guidance should trouble erupt. They have orders to mutiny and, if necessary, kill Letal should he seem on the verge of creating another military disaster. THE LAP SEPOYS The Lap’s home-grown legion, the Lap Sepoys, spend most of their time chasing bandits, guarding caravans (especially along the road to Gem) and escorting government officials. They also serve as city guards, breaking up bar fights and chasing prowlers from shops and warehouses. As such, sepoys use weapons that subdue, such as nets, truncheons and weighted ropes, as well as conventional melee weapons. The Lap fields 22 talons of sepoys, each numbering 126 soldiers. Each talon divides into five scales of 24 soldiers each. A captain commands each talon and officially answers to the Portreeves’ Office, though General Letal can commandeer whole talons of troops at whim. Additionally, the sepoys’ leaders defer to commands from any of the 12th Legion’s officers. The 12th often sends a scale to aid the sepoys in their efforts against bandits. Such missions supply valuable field training for the troops and command training for the scalelord. Since the Lap has no shortage of strong, healthy young people, the sepoys can afford to be picky and accept only the best applicants. Sepoys’ physical conditioning tends to be excellent. They receive only a few months’ basic training in riding, thrown weapons, melee weapons and unarmed combat, however. Additionally, the government does not require a stringent drill schedule, so the sepoys’ skills rarely improve with time. The Laplanders believe that if real war comes, the 12th Legion will take the front line. The sepoys can supply backup as archers and slingers, or more likely just stay in the city. Sepoys who enjoy their job often spend time learning greater martial skills. If they train to the Legions’ standards, they can join the 12th and escape indenture. Other sepoys just decide to seek higher pay; learning archery is a sure way to gain a higher pay grade. THE PORTREEVES’ OFFICE A group consisting of officers called portreeves oversees the Lap Sepoys. Originally, the portreeves were the Lap’s gate guards. Now, they command and administer those guards. A general staff of about a dozen retired sepoy captains decides which talons perform what duties, manages the sepoys’ budget and arranges for their supplies, and performs the other administrative tasks needed to maintain a professional military. Like the Landholder Council, the Portreeves’ Office selects its own members. A sepoy captain needs allies in the office, or on the Landholder Council, if he wants to become a portreeve himself. The landholders, however, cannot command the sepoys or the portreeves in any way. When landholders try, the senior officer—the Portreeve General—asks the 12th Legion’s general to protest this “civilian involvement in military matters.” The Dragon-Blooded commander seldom respects the native troops, but he respects the landholders even less, so he usually supports a fellow soldier against the caprice of civilians. RELIGION AND THE SUPERNATURAL The Lap government endorses the Immaculate Order as the province’s only legitimate faith. In return, the Immaculate Order endorses the Lap’s government as righteously obedient to the Realm and the Scarlet Dynasty. The great temple in the Lap Proper can hold more than 2,000 worshipers at a time. It has a spectacular view over the Verdant Triangle (extolled as making manifest the infinite bounty and benevolence of Sextes Jylis, He That Has Strewn Much Grass and the favorite Immaculate Dragon for Laplanders). Of course, most of the monks are mortal. Indeed, most are Laplanders who served out their indenture and felt called to devote their remaining years to the Immaculate Dragons. Their leaders, however, are Dragon-Blooded. Most Laplanders consider it an honor that such wise and powerful monks live in their land. As the central Immaculate temple in the South’s most loyal satrapy, the Lap’s temple warrants a lama. Laughing Peony oversees Immaculate activities throughout the Southwest. Despite her name, this elderly Wood Aspect takes her job very seriously and is quick to call in Wyld Hunts against Anathema. She has even participated in Wyld Hunts herself, putting her mastery of Wood Dragon Style to effective use. Laughing Peony is a “lost egg” Terrestrial, which she believes gives her special empathy for common folk. She frequently advocates for common Laplanders to the Golden Triumvirate. Less well known, but the subject of many folk tales, is the sybil Mnemon Kazath. This Earth-aspected ascetic lives high on the Penitent itself, ranging from the Arm Forest up to the shoulders and sometimes meditating atop the Penitent’s head, in the same position as the gigantic statue. He scorns Dynastic politics, having renounced them along with other worldly concerns. Ambitious folk seek Kazath on the theory that so wise and holy an Exalt must have divined the Penitent’s secrets, but he tells them not to disturb the great artifact. A good half-dozen deities, Terrestrial and Celestial, make scheduled appearances at the temple to assure Laplanders that all their hopes rest with the Immaculate Dragons and their Chosen. Most of these gods are agricultural deities, such as The Mound’s Nourishing Treasure, god of potatoes. GRANIAS The Lady of the Lap Lands and Reaper of Harvests appears as a young woman with orange squash blossoms in her corn-tassel hair and eyes the color of wheat: green in spring and summer, shifting to golden-brown in the autumn. Farmers wear tiny statuettes of her as necklaces or carry fist-sized idols into the fields with them. They pray to her far more often than the Immaculate Order has approved. In return, Granias not only adds her blessing to the Lap’s croplands, she often heals devout field hands of minor ailments and blesses their children to grow up strong and healthy. The Lady of the Lap made her peace with the Immaculate Order long ago, when a member of the Bronze Faction trapped her and made it clear her immortal existence could end. Granias appears in the Immaculate temple at the planting and harvest festivals, smiling and saying how the Dragons bless the Lap, the Dynasty and the Realm. She also visits the Scarlet Grange. But Granias does not forget the insult done to her, and she knows how well the people love her. Granias waits for opportunities to strike back against the Realm, the Dynasty and the Bronze Faction. She knows she is only a Terrestrial god of a small province; she cannot battle such foes. At the crucial time, however, she hopes to aid other foes of the Bronze Faction and see her enemies buried in the Lap’s rich soil. ESSENCE-USERS As pious Immaculates, Laplanders accept the Terrestrial Exalted are the only mortals with legitimate right to channel Essence. They feel it is only right and proper the Dragon-Blooded dominate their government (The Golden Triumvirate), their military (legion general and their faith (the Immaculate lama and vartabed among them). Truly, the Laplanders have no great need for other Essence-users. When some byblow of a randy Dynast Exalts, many Laplanders rejoice that one of their own shall go to the Blessed Isle to what they imagine is a life of wealth, power and glory. AHLAT AND THE LAP The Immaculate Order despises Ahlat. Nevertheless, the Lap’s Immaculates celebrate one holiday in Ahlat’s honor. They must. The Dragon-Blooded can push small Terrestrial gods around, but Ahlat defies even the Immaculates’ potent Sidereal backers. And so, once a year, the monks lead Laplanders in a celebration of Ahlat… but only in his role as God of Cattle. If they didn’t, Ahlat would make sure that no cow lives in Lap territory again. Milkmaids twine garlands of flowers around the horns of a placid steer and feed him grain blessed by a monk. It’s harmless, pretty and would make a real Bride of Ahlat see red with rage. Now and then, liaisons between mortals and local spirits result in God-Blooded Laplanders. The immaculates discourage such intimate relationships, so these half-breeds are not common. When they occur, they are indentured to the Scarlet Grange to become its elite thaumaturges. If any Fae-Blooded, Ghost-Blooded or Demon-Blooded Laplanders somehow were born, the Lap authorities would kill them as poisoned fruit from poisoned seeds. All methods by which mortals could enlighten their Essence are strictly forbidden. THE CULT OF THE ILLUMINATED Immaculate monks know a few Laplanders secretly follow the heretical Cult of the Illuminated. A few years ago, one of the cult’s Anathema passed by and killed a pack of hobgoblins that menaced a village. Such deeds impress simple folk and render them susceptible to false prophets. The monks do not realize how much the Cult has spread. The Cult’s missionaries not only bring tales of other stories about heroic deeds by the Solar Exalted, they talk about the glories Creation has lost but could have again. Most of all, they talk about a righteous new order in which people don’t spend most of their lives as serfs. The Cult of the Illuminated is still very small, but it grows steadily. Many villages hold safe houses. The Cult even reaches into the city—mostly in the tenements of the poor, but a few artisans, clerks and soldiers have joined as well. Hundreds of Laplanders are ready to help a traveling Lawgiver. Should a Laplander become one of the Sun’s Chosen, the cultists would take it as a sign that the end of bondage approaches and expect the Solar to carry this out. for mortal travails. When people give him food and treat him kindly, he does small tricks such as making pebbles appear and disappear, or making flames jump from candle to candle. Insults and harassment drive him into screaming fits, but he seems harmless enough. He also makes no effort to lead people away from Immaculate piety. No one takes the mad Mendicant seriously. At most, they think he is an addled God-Blood of insignificant power. No one realizes that the Mendicant once bore the name of Swan Dragon, revered Censor of the South—not even the Mendicant himself. COVERT ACTIVITIES Beyond the Lap’s public face of total and unshakable subservience to the Realm, a number of groups act covertly in the Lap. All the Great Houses of the Realm post agents in the Lap, trying to steer more of its wealth their way. Houses Cathak, Peleps and Ragara naturally have an advantage in this, since they supply the three triumvirs. An-Teng, Paragon, the Delzahn Empire and a number of smaller states keep embassies in the Lap, to facilitate commerce and diplomacy. REVOLUTION! Should a Lawgiver attempt to free the Laplanders from their indentures, a few hundred members of the Cult of the Illuminated are ready to fight and die for their sakes. The Solar doesn’t even need endorsement by the Cult’s central command. The Laplanders take all Solar Exalted as the Cult’s shining prophets. The first significant, successful blow against the Golden Triumvirate and the landholders rouses thousands more Laplanders to the Solars’ side. A second success tips the province into revolution, with mobs of field hands burning landholder villas and artisans battling the Lap Sepoys for control of the entrance tunnels. Hitherto, the Golden Triumvirate dealt with revolts by sacrificing the Landholder Council. A revolution backed by Exalted, however, would have to fight every Dragon-Blood in the city and the entire 12th Legion, with a Wyld Hunt on its way as quickly as possible and additional legions following more slowly. The Realm will not let go of the Lap without a major war. THE MENDICANT The Immaculate monks also know about a nameless old vagrant whom Laplanders call the Mendicant. Many people think he is a holy man. The Mendicant seems kindly enough most of the time, and his meandering babble sometimes seems to show a bit of spiritual insight as well as sympathy At least one Deathlord takes an interest in the Lap as well. Ghostly spies walk the city streets and overhear private schemes. Mortal agents gather information as well and create safe houses for Abyssal operatives who might visit. The First and Forsaken Lion has his eye on the Lap as the strategic key to the Southwest. Arch-sorcerers such as the Mask of Winters recall the arcane power of the Last Supplicant and imagine how to twist its power in dire new ways. And others? The wise among the Lunar Exalted, the Fair Folk and the lords of Malfeas must surely recognize the power available to whoever rules the Lap. Any attempt to wrest the Lap away from the Realm could force any number of powerful people to advance their own plans. GEOGRAPHY The Lap’s province extends about 150 miles east to west and north to south, with the Lap itself in the middle. To the north lies the Inland Sea; to the west rise a mass of high hills extending from the Fire Mountains. The line of hills continues along the province’s southern border, dividing it from the interior highlands. Lower, gentler hills ripple down to the shore. The small Lap River flows down from the western hills; it is not navigable along any of its length. A number of smaller streams and creeks descend from the southern hills. The whole province enjoys higher and steadier rainfall than any other land between the Firepeaks and the Summer Mountains, largely due to the power of the Penitent. Savants find that the mighty statue attracts gentle tides of Air, Water and Wood Essence as if it were a subsidiary Pole of Earth, drawing Creation’s elements into balance. Summers aren’t as hot and dry around the Lap as in the rest of the South. Autumn storms are less severe. Instead of the South, the province resembles a bit of the Blessed Isle. The whole country is under cultivation. Fields of maize, squash, potatoes and other grains and vegetables cover most of the country. Even the patches of woods are cultivated for timber, along with stands of peach, pecan and cork-oak. Foresters plant saplings to replace each cut tree. No animals larger or more dangerous than rabbits run wild. Every 10 or 20 miles, a hilltop bears a village of adobe houses pressed close together, with a few outlying villas and many large barns and brick silos. Most villages in the Lap have names such as Corntassel or Prize Pumpkin. Some carry the names of satraps of long ago, such as Navasha Town. Fat pigs and cattle munch their feed behind low fences. Visitors say the people seem just as somnolent, working steadily in the fields. THE PENITENT Towering over the province, visible to all, rises the Penitent. The mighty statue rises almost five miles above the countryside. The stout monk faces northeast—toward the Imperial City, some people say—and sits in the classic pose of meditation, legs crossed, hands folded at the base of his chest with thumbs raised and lightly pressed together. His robe folds about his body, arms and legs, with a broad collar about his neck. Creeks and waterfalls thread the monk’s robes with cascades of silver. Only the monk’s head is flawed, with black slag covering half his forehead, an eye, and dripping down his nose and cheek. The clouds that collect about the Penitent’s head often hide the damage, Here, at the Lap itself, is the province’s only true wilderness. Soil collects in the folds and furrows of the titanic figure, and trees grow. A whole forest nestles in the vast ledge of the monk’s arms. Mountain goats and panthers live on the statue-mountain, while falcons and vultures soar about his head. The Laplanders know a few paths up the Penitent that don’t require ropes and pitons. Now and then, small groups climb the Penitent to hunt in the Arm Forest. Others ascend still higher. People can see hundreds of miles from the shoulders, all the way to the tiny blue crags of the Firepeaks and the wisps of smoke from the chimneys of Paragon. Only skilled mountaineers, however, can climb the Penitent’s head to explore the whorled caves of his ears or make the final ascent to the cap of snow on his shaved pate. Many explorers have sought the way inside the head, where legend says a great treasure awaits. The most popular tales speak of more diamonds than in all of Gem, a secret testament of Pasiap or the home of a wish-granting spirit. Mountaineers from throughout Creation have probed the Penitent’s head with no success. Canny Laplanders try not to discourage visitors from abroad, even though they know the latest explorers will find nothing but graffiti left by the explorers who came before them. After all, the tourists spend money outfitting their expeditions. THE CITY The city of the Lap has a population of about 120,000, counting the villages of field hands that cluster around the Penitent as a sort of suburb. The Lap covers every bit of space available on the statue’s legs, though. Most buildings are boxes of cream-colored adobe with flat, red tile roofs, crammed together into solid blocks with narrow streets in between. Some buildings are four or five stories tall. Streets tend to run along the lines of the statue’s legs, to stay fairly level. Shorter, steeper cross-streets—or flights of stairs—cut between them. Most streets are quite narrow, so no one except the city guard ever rides, and even wagons are reserved for hauling bulk cargo. People walk or are carried in sedan chairs. Many buildings have rooftop entrances, so people can move about the block without using the crowded streets. Where the statue’s surface slopes enough, the streets actually run on top of the buildings of the next layer down; these tend to be the widest streets in the city. NORTHLEG The Penitent’s north-pointing thigh receives fresh breezes from the sea, making it a popular district for shops, markets and residences of the well-to-do. Since the Lap has no space to spare, the markets and bazaars take place on the flat roofs of the inhabitants’ homes and businesses. The Laplanders group all workshops of the same industry together, so one long, narrow block has all the silversmiths, one has all the hatters, one has all the needle-makers, and so on—each with its shared bazaar on the shared rooftop. Northleg also holds most of the Lap’s better teahouses and hostels. EASTLEG The Penitent’s other thigh points east. This district holds the Lap’s heavy industries, or at least the smelly ones: forges and smelters, tanners and dyers, renderers and the like. Here, the prevailing winds from the north blow the smoke and smells away from the rest of the city. The people who work at these occupations suffer the misfortune of having to live nearby. THE FOLD Warehouses, granaries and tenements dominate the district where the Penitent’s shins cross and press together. This is the poorest district of the Lap, inhabited by porters, street-cleaners, the people who winch cargoes up from the ground and other unskilled laborers. Entire families might live in one room of a tenement building. Most of the food grown in the province passes through the Fold, though. THE LAP PROPER The small, rather steeply sloping region where the Penitent’s legs meet its body is the most exclusive district of the Lap. Its official name is the Lap Proper, but most local folk call it the Crotch. This district holds government buildings, the villas of the wealthiest families (including most people from the Realm) and the city’s largest temple of the Immaculate Order. THE VERDANT TRIANGLE The Penitent’s robes collect between his legs to form a triangular valley covering about 65 acres, with steeply sloping walls about 200 feet high. The Laplanders call it the Verdant Triangle and use it as a vineyard and orchard. Sheltered from even the fiercest storms, warmed by sunlight reflected down from the Penitent’s torso, summer lingers long in the Verdant Triangle, producing uncommonly sweet and rich fruits and vintages. CERTAIN URBAN NECESSITIES The Lap gets its water from the streams that run down the Penitent. Laplanders call this system of channels, reservoirs and aqueducts the Step Fountains. The Crotch receives the water first. The Step Fountains’ pipes then flow down each leg. Laplanders prefer to live as close to the Penitent’s hips as possible, so they receive the freshest and most abundant water. The people of the Fold receive the water last, before the grimy dregs go to the Verdant Triangle. People in the poorer districts set out rain barrels to collect the runoff from their roofs, though this water is none too clean. The Lap also has a sewer system—well, more of a network of long, tubular septic tanks, since there usually isn’t enough rainwater to flush out the offal. The Lap’s single most unpleasant job consists of shoveling the composting excreta out of the sewers. Some of the compost goes into the Verdant Triangle. The rest gets dumped over the outer edge of the Penitent’s legs, where more laborers collect it to spread on the fields. This practice incidentally explains why no one lives less than 200 feet from the base of the Penitent. The wind can blow the effluvium some distance as it descends. It also explains the single oddest phrase that visitors are likely to hear from the locals as they approach the city: “Huh. Looks like it’ll be rainin’ shit today.” WINDMILLS Dozens of windmills rise above the Lap. The wind blows constantly this high above the ground, making it a highly reliable source of power. Windmills grind grain into flour, crush ore and pump bellows in the smithies, pound leather to soften it, turn winches and perform many other tasks. Nine years ago, the famous Air Aspect savant Cynis Mond, a.k.a. the Windtamer, visited the Lap and hooked Essence accumulators to windmills atop the Lap’s palace of government and the Immaculate temple. Those buildings now possess Essence lighting. Each of the triumvirs would like to take the government palace’s Essence accumulator, but none of them are savants, and none of them would allow a rival to claim such a prize. ENTERING THE LAP The Lap’s greatest advantage is also its greatest disadvantage: It’s located high on a mountain-sized statue. The lowest part of the city—one of the Penitent’s ankles, forming the tail-end of the Fold—is 700 feet above the ground. The lowest habitable areas of the legs are three times that altitude. The first settlers hacked a steep, narrow path up to the Penitent’s ankle, and a careful mountaineer could climb some of the folds of the monk’s robe. Later, the Shogunate drove three tunnels through the Penitent’s legs—one through each ankle, one under the middle of the Fold. These tunnels are each four yards wide and more than a mile long, gradually spiraling upwards. Stout iron gates divide each tunnel into nine sections. The first, last and central sections all can be collapsed in such a way that a besieger would need to clear 100 feet of rubble to pass the section. Most of the time, though, the gates stand open. After steady ascent, each tunnel ends in the Verdant Triangle. From there, a number of narrow stairs ascend to the city. Most people and cargo, however, ascend the 200 feet in elevators powered by winches, with counterweights to balance the load somewhat. More than 100 such elevators line the walls of the Verdant Triangle. THE PEOPLE OF THE LAP In most ways, Laplanders live much like everyone else in Creation. They work hard for little reward. They love and hate, raise families and mourn deaths. They treat the spirits with careful respect. Some aspects of Laplander life, however, seem quite bizarre to folk from anywhere else. INDENTURE Every Laplander spends most of his life working for the state. This period of forced labor lasts from age 13 to age 43. Before then, children may engage in light work, assisting their parents. For instance, even quite small children can pick bugs off squash vines. For this reason, outsiders often believe that Laplanders begin a 40-year indenture at birth, rather than a 30-year indenture at early adolescence. The difference might not matter much, as early exposure to an occupation plays a role in determining a Laplander’s later occupation. Every Laplander—no exceptions—spends the first five years of indenture in the fields. Local stories attribute this rule to the Empress’s husband Rawar, as a way to make sure that the Laplanders’ mortal leaders did not grow too distant from their countrymen. (Whether this works is debatable. The memory that children of wealthy Laplanders often carry into later life is the hazing they received from the less privileged.) At age 18, the now-adult Laplander receives her first work evaluation. For nine in 10 Laplanders, this means continuing their farm labor. Others become artisans, clerks, soldiers and all the other sorts of people that a functioning society needs. Every five years thereafter, Laplanders receive further performance reviews. With good reviews, a Laplander can advance within her occupation. A foot soldier can become a captain; a clerk can become head of an office; a common farmhand can become a foreman. Rarely, however, does an adult Laplander change occupations completely. As in the Realm, the Lap uses paper koku and quian, and copper siu and yen. Lap money has no value anywhere else. Only free Laplanders can legally own other forms of money. REFUSING INDENTURE At any time, a Laplander can decide she doesn’t want to live as a serf anymore. The Lap exiles such malcontents and cuts off the last joint of the little finger. The Lap punishes exiles who try to return by throwing them out of the city. The 2,000-foot drop generally proves fatal. INDENTURE’S END A Laplander’s 43rd birthday is the happiest day of her life. On that day, she retires from working for the state. If she wants, she never has to work again. The state continues to provide her with living quarters and a modest allowance of Lap scrip based on her occupation and rank when she retired. Most Laplanders prefer to keep working—only now, higher-ranking people receive their pay in silver. Most Laplanders also continue in the occupation they know. An artisan, however, can now open his own shop, or a merchant can make her own deals. Even a retired farmhand can open a moderately disreputable teahouse or restaurant. A free Laplander can buy food, clothing and other amenities for relatives who are still indentured. Many Laplander families would be much poorer and hungrier without such donations from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Only free Laplanders can enter the highest ranks of most occupations. Such elders manage the farms, command the military, arrange contracts between the Lap, other states and the Guild and so on. As such, only these Laplanders truly become wealthy. Retired Laplanders dominate occupations that the state deems unnecessary and unprofitable. No one spends his indenture as a musician, actor or other sort of entertainer. Priesthood also falls outside the range of state-supported activities (though if a god personally demands that the state allow a Laplander to serve as her priest, the Lap’s government generally accommodates the spirit.) Free Laplanders concentrate in the Lap itself. Visitors soon notice that all the shopkeepers and innkeepers, street vendors and minstrels—everyone who runs her own business—is middle-aged or older. THE ILLICIT ECONOMY Of course, a lot goes on that the Lap’s government never approved. Indentured Laplanders may barter the gifts from their older relatives. Many a Laplander also trades homemade moonshine. Prostitution as a way to gain illicit coin happens all the time. In the Lap itself, whole black-market bordellos operate whose girls and boys officially engage in some other occupation. Clever Laplanders also forge Lap scrip. This crime carries the death penalty, but the government actually does not spend much time searching for counterfeiters. The quantity is never large, since few Laplanders possess the skill to print or coin a decent forgery, so the fakes never become a significant drain on the state’s profits. SOCIAL CLIMBING Although every Laplander spends most of his time indentured to the state, the Lap is far from a classless society. Laplanders who accumulate wealth and high rank after their indenture can arrange for children and grandchildren to leave the fields and receive rapid promotions in land management, the civil service, business and industry. While indentured, children of privilege are limited in the wealth they can gain—at least legally—but they can receive larger and nicer living quarters, more free time and access to luxury goods not available at the state canteens and depots. Most importantly, they leave their indenture already placed and prepared to enter the higher ranks of free Laplanders, getrich and pass the benefits to their own children. The Lap, therefore, has definite social classes. Most Laplanders stay in the lower class of field hands and other unskilled laborers, generation after generation. A fraction reaches the middle class of artisans, soldiers, foremen and minor government functionaries. A very few enjoy great wealth and power as government ministers, plantation managers and the merchants who trade the Lap’s bounty. While children of the middle class frequently end up as field hands and children of laborers occasionally work their way into the middle class, the upper class is as self-contained as any in Creation. The Lap’s leaders reserve for their own offspring any position that could lead to entering the upper class. AGRICULTURE Most Laplanders spend their entire lives as farm labor. They gain at least a little pride, however, from working the most productive farmland in Creation. (So local tradition claims, at least. Certainly, the province has few rivals.) More than fertile soil and a mild climate accounts for this abundance. Lap farms employ technologies that most of Creation forgot after the First Age, such as seed drills, disk harrows and ox-drawn combine harvesters. Laplanders use magic too: a variety of minor artifacts, alchemical fertilizers and thaumaturgical procedures to protect crops from blights and pests and make them grow larger and more nutritious. The Lap’s greatest asset, though, may be the Jade Sickle Academy, located in the village of Wheatsheaf near the base of the Penitent. Laplanders sometimes call it the Scarlet Grange because of its Imperial sponsorship. This school is perhaps the finest agricultural college and research center outside the Blessed Isle (not that it has much competition in the Age of Sorrows). The savants at the Academy study plant and animal husbandry and train expert farmers to manage the Lap’s plantations. Over the three centuries since the Academy began, the savants have bred superior strains of many crops, developed new techniques of pest control and learned a great deal about land management. The Grange’s dominie, Sesus Deron, is himself an alumnus of the House of Ancient Stone, a reform school on the Blessed Isle with a great history of turning young Exalted hell-raisers into skilled and hardworking land managers. Deron stays in contact with the House of Ancient Stone’s dominie, giving the Realm an information channel about Lap affairs that most foreign spies miss completely. If anything strange happens in the Lap farmlands, the Scarlet Grange’s staff learns about it. Eventually, so does Deron’s old teacher. From there, the word can spread through the Scarlet Dynasty. LEADERSHIP The Lap has three distinct centers of state power. In order of power (strongest to weakest) they are: * the Golden Triumvirate; satraps sent from the Realm, * a council of powerful land managers * a hereditary king. Other groups can lobby for favored policies, but they have no official role in government. THE GOLDEN TRIUMVIRATE The Empress learned through experience that the Lap presented great temptations to ambitious satraps — if not to outright rebellion, then to running the province as a cash cow for their Great Houses (instead of a cash cow for the Imperial government). Therefore, she gave the Lap three co-equal satraps, forming an office called the Golden Triumvirate. All three of the triumvirs must agree to any official action, making each triumvir a check on the power of the other two. The Golden Triumvirate rules openly and explicitly, to a degree that rarely occurs among satrapies. The triumvirs write laws, negotiate contracts and treaties, appoint the heads of civil service bureaus and perform many other functions of heads of state. They must approve all laws and all appointments to high office, however. The triumvirs hear any complaints against the Realm or its citizens (and usually dismiss the complaints out of hand). Most importantly, the three satraps assess and collect the Realm’s share of the Lap’s agricultural produce and profits. No one disputes their assessments, because the Golden Triumvirate also controls the Realm’s legion in residence, a military force no Laplander would dare to challenge. Following her usual practice with the Lap’s triumvirs, the Scarlet Empress chose three Dynasts she expected to dislike each other, to reduce the chance of collusion among them. Of course, it does increase the difficulty of getting anything their time plotting ever happens in the helps make sure that CATHAK SIJIP The Lap’s oldest satrap combines a keen mind and a stubborn streak. Sijip disappoints some within House Cathak by not striving to ermbezzle more of the Lap’s wealth. She has proven herself as the most hardheaded of the triumvirs, however, not supporting any idea or project that she deems illogical. Many of the Lap’s elite resources. The other two satraps frustrate Sijip with their bickering. Sijip also has far-reaching plans on how to restructure the Lap’s labor force and government to make the state more efficient. Indeed, she leads the plan to abolish the monarchy as redundant. If the city is to have a monarch, she believes that that person—herself, ideally—should wield sole power. Sijip intends to break all ties with the Dynasty and rule the city as its queen… and would deal with just about anyone to make this ambition a reality. RAGARA ALORU The Lap’s second satrap loyally serves the Realm first and his House second… though he does see that House Ragara gets a good share of the Lap’s profits. He spent years in the Lap as a merchant, arranging deals for his House. The Empress appointed him as a satrap due to his clever notions about ways to increase the Realm’s tax revenues on everything entering or leaving the Lap. Aloru’s skill at political economy—and squeezing the most profit from a system—makes him a model satrap and deeply disliked by Lap officials. Unfortunately, Aloru is also a habitual gambler, and a bad one at that, so his personal fortune waxes and wanes. For this reason, interested parties can often buy his vote. He knows Sijip hates him for this character flaw. She often criticizes him by saying, “Who is it that wishes this done this way, Aloru? Surely not you! How much to change your vote?” PELEPS TUCHET The newest member of the Triumvirate is a true puppet of his House. His House elders arranged his appointment purely because they knew he would not develop ambitions of his own. Tuchet has only moderate skills as an administrator, but enormous skill as a schmoozer. This social chameleon remembers everyone he ever met, and how to present himself as a wonderful friend who agrees with them about everything. On those occasions when the Triumvirate must deal with angry Laplanders, they send Peleps Tuchet to convince everyone that the Realm and the satraps care about them very much, and Things Will Be Done… without committing to any details. Tuchet fears the finality of decisions, however. When the triumvirs come close to agreement, he often changes his mind or asks for further deliberation. Of course, his vacillation earns him no favor with his counterparts. In fact, he knows that Sijip would gladly strangle him with her bare hands. Already, she has lunged at him several times, only to be pulled back by Aloru. Just thinking about his ability to enrage Sijip makes him smile. He does not fear her in the least. She is but a toy to him, and Aloru is not much better. THE LANDHOLDER COUNCIL Laplanders never own much real estate; the nation itself owns the vast plantations. Certain individuals, however, become responsible for managing large tracts of territory and all the people who work that land. As the people who bear chief responsibility for the very reason for the Lap’s existence—crops to sell or send to the Realm—these individuals naturally function as the native aristocracy. The two or three dozen landholders who have the greatest wealth and power form a rudimentary parliament for the Lap. The landholders know that serious defiance would result in their execution by the Realm’s garrison, so they merely offer the done, and the triumvirs spend much of t against each other. But so what? Nothing e Lap, and a sluggish, divided Triumvirate h nothing ever does. logical or a waste of the Lap’s funds. Man appreciate this care for the nation’s resou w satraps a choice between an actively cooperative council and sullen, resentful native intermediaries. The triumvirs permit the landholders enough power that the landholders can see that their own children become great landholders in turn, keeping the wealth and power locked into a few dozen families that the Laplanders call “the Families.” The Landholder Council cannot create laws by itself, but it frequently suggests laws to the Golden Triumvirate. The landholders also suggest candidates to head the Lap’s civil service—all, ostensibly, as a courtesy to save the satraps’ valuable time. The triumvirs frequently accept the suggestions too. The council has the privilege of appointing its own members, by majority vote among the existing members, so its size varies as landholders die and are replaced. The landholders hardly present a united front to the triumvirs, though. Individuals and cliques in the council have their own interests and rivalries. A great deal of favor-trading and backbiting goes on at council meetings. Triumvirs quickly learn that their strongest hold over the landholders is their capacity to play one faction against another. The landholder factions all want the power of the Triumvirate on their side, so most of them are willing to act as proxies for one satrap or another in the council’s debates. If a triumvir wants to pursue some project while retaining plausible deniability to the other satraps, it’s easy to talk a landholder into becoming the front man. THE KING The Scarlet Empress gave the Lap a king as a sop to local pride. The Lap’s monarch has never been more than a figurehead, though—someone to sign proclamations already written, lead parades and take the blame if anything goes wrong. He certainly could not veto the satraps or indeed take any decision that they did not approve. The current king, Vallish Macotri III, is quite old and in poor health. A year ago, the triumvirs and landholders quietly decided that once King Macotri dies (it can’t be long now), they wouldn’t bother appointing a successor. Powerless though the king is, the office somewhat complicates government business. Indeed, neither the satraps nor the landholders have bothered to bring King Macotri into any government business for several years now. King Macotri has two potential heirs: a pair of grandsons, cousins to each other. Vallish Argo is a junior savant at the Jade Sickle Academy. Tever Marsune is a captain in the Lap’s native military. Both are young, hardworking and competent at their jobs. To ease the abolition of the monarchy, the satraps and landholders have agreed to murder the two young men as soon as their royal grandfather dies. LEGAL SYSTEM The Lap has an extensive government for a fairly small province, but the government’s chief activity is overseeing everyone’s indenture. After all, one-fifth of the population receives a work evaluation every year. Even with clerks who tend to stamp every citizen’s work record “Satisfactory—Continue in Present Position” without reading it, that’s a lot of records to stamp. Just recording the harvest each season requires thousands of clerks. Everything except agriculture and managing the labor force tends to receive short shrift. The Lap has a brief, largely commonsense legal code that bans assault, fraud, theft and other crimes against persons and property. Whipping is the usual punishment for anything less severe than murder. Any crime that denies the Lap a person’s labor or that threatens the peace on a large scale, is punished with exile or (for murder or active sedition) thrown from the city walls. Plantation managers dispense justice largely as they see fit, and the field hands have little chance to appeal to judges in the city. NOTABLE INDIVIDUALS FOREIGN RELATIONS THE GUILD THE REALM The Lap exists in total submission to the Realm. It has no relationships with anyone else, except as the Realm permits. The Realm takes a large fraction of the Lap’s agricultural surplus. The Lap sells the rest, but the Golden Triumvirate must approve every contract. The Realm has a long history of using food from the Lap as a diplomatic weapon, selling cheaply to countries, towns and tribes who defer to the Realm’s interests and withholding food from anyone who shows defiance. Of all the Lap’s customers, only Gem escapes this patronizing treatment. The Realm wants Gem’s wealth badly enough to give its Despot some leverage. Caravans laden with food take the Diamond Road south and return bearing firedust, jewels, silver and gold. Indeed, more than half of all travelers to or from Gem pass through the Lap. The Diamond Road is the safest route, with the most and best stocked caravansaries along the way. ANATHEMA FOREIGNERS SECRETS OF THE LAP THE PENITENT The return of the Lawgivers could result in the reactivation of the Last Supplicant of Endless Power. Any Solar who takes control of the Penitent immediately becomes a power in the South comparable to the Realm or the Guild. Therefore, several entities who remember the giant statue’s true purpose watch the Lap closely—Sidereals of all factions, a few exceptionally learned Dynasts, the First and Forsaken Lion, Ahlat and the Court of the Orderly Flame, among others. Anyone who investigates the Penitent likely finds herself investigated in turn. Her various watchers are also likely to find each other, possibly triggering a many-sided conflict over the mere potential that someone might claim one of Creation’s most potent artifacts. THE CHAKRAS The Penitent’s interior contains six large chambers that correspond loosely to the chakras, or centers of Essence flow in the human body. Five of these chambers correspond to Creation’s elements: Earth at the base of the spine, Wood at the pelvis, Water in the gut and navel, Fire at the heart and Air at the larynx. The sixth and largest chamber is the control room for the Last Supplicant, located behind the brow. When a Lawgiver sets the Last Supplicant to work, it draws in Creation’s Essence through the five lower chakras and the seventh chakra manifests—the Lotus Chakra of pure soul, opening above the Penitent’s head to blaze like a trapped aurora. Each chakra-chamber exists slightly separated from physical reality, rather like a god’s sanctum. To enter the lower chakras, one must find the correct point on the statue (corresponding to the chakra’s chief acupuncture point on the human body) and infuse that spot with 15 motes of Essence of the same elemental aspect. A tunnel into the Penitent’s interior appears. It lasts for 15 seconds before fading away. The tunnels appear to be hundreds of feet long, but when they fade, they swallow everyone inside them into the chamber. Leaving the chamber requires spending just five motes of properly aspected Essence. The Essence concentrated within each chakra-chamber is so intense that it can kill mere mortals in seconds. The Essence is an environmental effect (Damage 4L/action, Trauma 4). Possible means of protection include being an elemental of matching aspect, having a matching Terrestrial anima active at the 11+ mote level, or Charms against environmental damage such as Element-Resisting Prana. The entrance to the Earth chakra is at the base of the Penitent’s spine. Dirt has piled up against the Penitent sufficiently that the access point is now 10 feet underground. The palace of the Golden Triumvirate now sits on top of the entrance to the Wood chakra. The entrance to the Water chakra, where the Penitent’s navel would be, is 900 feet above that but accessible by climbing along the channels of the Step Fountains. The Fire chakra entrance, a mile and a half up the Penitent, is located right above the tips of the Penitent’s thumbs. The Air chakra entrance is under the Penitent’s chin. SWAN DRAGON’S SANCTUM The Fire chakra has an additional feature. It used to be the sanctum of the lesser elemental dragon Swan Dragon, former Censor of the South. It contains a variety of furnishings and implements of a suitable size for a 100-foot-long dragon, all made from highly durable materials such as jade or orichalcum. Most items were merely personal effects of the Censor, but the sanctum holds several items from Swan Dragon’s official paraphernalia that never passed to his successor, Wong Bongerok. If the new Censor obtained these items, he would immediately gain far greater credibility in Yu-Shan and greater authority in Creation. THE CONTROL CHAMBER The entrance to the control chamber is located on the mountain-statue’s forehead, in the location of an Exalted caste mark. Opening the portal requires infusing 20 motes of Solar Essence into the proper location. Getting out costs five motes. The circle-and-star motif of the Unconquered Sun himself blazes golden on the Penitent’s forehead, 50 yards across and bright enough to be seen on the Inland Sea coast. The passage to the control chamber opens in the middle of the symbol. The control chamber itself is a domed cylinder 100 yards across. Eight ribs of stone cut across the walls and floor, continuing the curve of the ceiling to define a complete sphere. In the center rises a pillar two yards wide, made of all five commingled colors of jade shot with veins of starmetal, moonsilver and orichalcum. Jade-steel rings connected by eight vertical bars form a cage and ladder around the column. The top is slightly dished. From the dome’s apex, a narrow spine of mingled magical materials tapers to a point six feet above the pillar. The tunnel enters one of the bays formed by the eight ribs. The other seven hold desks, shelves of books and memorycrystals, maps of the South showing dragon lines, demesnes and other geomantically important locations, and ordinary conveniences such as a box lined with unmelting ice where the Last Supplicant’s operators kept snacks. Only an expert geomancer could understand most of the information in the chamber, but much of this lore has not been known in Creation since the First Age. USING THE LAST SUPPLICANT A Solar Exalt can control the Last Supplicant by sitting atop the pillar in the control room and meditating in the same posture as the Old Man himself—and committing 20 motes to the device. In her mind, the Solar perceives all of Creation within 2,000 miles. All the currents and nexuses of Essence become visible. So do portals to Yu-Shan, Wyld pockets, shadowlands and other locations where Creation intersects with other realms. Concentrating on specific locations to pull useful information from the wash of sensation requires a successful (Perception + Occult) roll for general views on a scale of cities and provinces. The difficulty rises to 5 for feats such as finding a tiny shadowland in a Chiaroscuro basement. INCARNA SEALS (ARTIFACT •• EACH) A jade coffer in Swan Dragon’s sanctum holds a set of eight seals, each of which marks a document as endorsed by one of the Incarnae (including one for Gaia), or to be sent directly to that Incarna’s office. They are the only seals that neither magic nor mortal artifice can imitate. Swan Dragon used these seals to bypass much of Heaven’s bureaucracy, and to alert Terrestrial spirits when his missives presented policies from the highest possible level. As such, any document stamped with one of these seals receives the most serious attention from spirits. While a seal does not guarantee that an Incarna personally reads a missive sent to Heaven, the sender knows that at least it reaches the Incarna’s immediate deputy, such as Ryzala in the Bureau of Heaven or Nara-O in the Bureau of Destiny. Each use of a seal costs the user one level of unsoakable, aggravated damage as the seal rips out part of her life-force and fashions it into a mark of Essence. Misuse of these seals to present one’s own directives as those of an Incarna is a Celestial offense of maximum severity. Spirits and Exalted alike face a strong likelihood of execution for such a crime. What the Solar perceives, she can control. The Last Supplicant can move dragon lines, augment or reduce demesnes (and therefore the manses that cap them), and perform other feats of geomantic engineering. Altering a demesne involves a roll of (Intelligence + Occult + Degree in the Art of Geomancy) at a difficulty of (demesne’s desired rating + 3). A demesne’s strength can change only one step at a time. Whereas each roll represents one year of mortal labor, however, it represents one week of using the Last Supplicant at least five hours per day. A skilled Solar could thus destroy a three-dot demesne (and de-power the manse atop it) in just three weeks. More ominously, a Solar could perform geomantic sabotage to make a demesne explode. Finding a demesne’s geomantic stress-points requires a (Perception + Lore + Geomancy Degree) roll at difficulty 3. Twisting the demesne’s Essence so it builds to an explosion calls for the standard geomantic engineering roll, also at difficulty 3. Perhaps fortunately, the Last Supplicant cannot detonate a manse; the Essence flows are too stable. A Solar can, however, target an unstable manse or demesne and repair its Essence flows in a single scene (though the demesne’s power drops by one dot). The Last Supplicant can even control the volcanoes in the Fire Mountains by altering the flows of Earth and Fire Essence. Doing so uses the same geomantic engineering roll and one week of meditation, with the difficulty set by the severity of the desired eruption. A small belch of ash is difficulty 1. A month-long eruption that sends streams of lava for miles is difficulty 5. For difficulty 10, the operator can create a caldera eruption that spreads feet of ash over thousands of miles of the South. Conversely, the operator can also quell eruptions, at the same difficulties. The notes in the control room mention another possibility that the Solar Deliberative tried only experimentally. If Dragon-Blooded representing all five elements each commit 20 motes to attune to their respective chakras, the Last Supplicant can evoke environmental effects on a scale that only the Realm Defense Grid can surpass—for instance, tornado-strength sandstorms blowing along dragon lines. The five Terrestrial Exalted must be bound to each other and to the Solar operator by the Sworn Brotherhood Oath or similar magic. The Last Supplicant might have other powers as well. For instance, Laplanders tell many stories about the Old Man someday waking up and not being happy to find his face melted off and a city between his legs. No one presents any evidence that the mountain-statue can move… but few people want to set limits to the wonders of the Old Realm. Operating the Last Supplicant carries risks. Any geomantic engineering roll that botches results in damage of commensurate scale—demesnes detonated or destroyed, dragon lines twisted to curse entire provinces and the like. This is why the Unconquered Sun had Swan Dragon deactivate the Last Supplicant. Other Exalted can activate the Supplicant and use it as a passive Essence-sensing device, but any attempt at geomantic engineering automatically botches. Anyone who wants to use the Last Supplicant also needs to “unlock” the Essence blocks that Swan Dragon put in place. Since the Unconquered Sun himself designed them, unraveling the Essence blocks calls for an (Intelligence + Occult + Geomancy Degree) roll at difficulty 15… or 5, if you can restore Swan Dragon to sanity and draw on his memories of what he did.The Lap also has one elite talon, the Formidable First, also called the Crimson Talon. LAP SEPOYS: THE FORMIDABLE FIRST Description: When caravans or visiting dignitaries require strong protection, they receive an escort from the Formidable First. Soldiers make it in the first talon through their initiative in seeking further training. Their commanding officer, Captain Jolavos, has an unmatched record for killing and routing bandits. General Letal has managed to mortally insult him several times while thinking he was giving compliments. Commanding Officer: Captain Jolavos PRAYER WHEELS OF SEXTES JYLIS (ARTIFACT • OR ••) The Lap has more than 100 of these artifacts and the Scarlet Grange gradually makes more. Each prayer wheel consists of a yard-high, foot-wide cylinder of porcelain infused with powdered green jade, with copper fittings at each end. The cylinder bears symbols of Sextes Jylis and prayers to the Immaculate Dragon. Every day in which the wheel is spun for at least five hours, all plants within three miles are immune to rusts, smuts and other blights. Smaller versions can protect all the produce stored in a warehouse. Small versions are one-dot artifacts; the larger versions are two-dot artifacts.